My first marathon was in April of 2000 – Glass City in Toledo, OH. I was in grad school, and trained all throughout the fall and winter with three dear friends. All of us were long-time runners, with Kristi and Erica being highly-accomplished collegiate athletes in undergrad. I don’t remember exactly when that fall we decided to run a marathon, but I’m guessing it happened over ice cream at UDF. None of us had ran that far before, and we thought it’d be a good distraction from the grind of school. Training with those women remains the highlight of the year I spent at Miami University. Three of us made it to the start line healthy and finished the race, with Sarah taken down by injury a few months prior. I finished in 4:02, and would spend the next decade trying to break the four-hour barrier.
Through the aughts I ran nine more mediocre marathons, never figuring out how my body wanted to train. They were all a grind, with my times getting slower and slower. In early 2010, I registered for Green Bay in May. A bad sinus infection put me out most of the month of February, and I almost bailed on the race. But I decided to run anyway since I was already registered and had a hotel (along with my sister, we’d be making a weekend of it), and would just train to build fitness, letting go of any goals for the race. I started running five days/week that spring, and surprised myself with a 4:03 in Green Bay, the closest I’d come to my PR in the ten years since my first race. Thinking I might be on to something, I just focused on mileage that summer. I included two progression runs/week for quality, and just ran as many miles as I could. I think I topped out around 50-55 mpw, which felt like A LOT at the time. The miles ended up being the missing link, for in Oct. of 2010 at Lakefront Marathon in Milwaukee I ran a huge, unexpected PR (3:45) and even managed to qualify for Boston. Accomplishing a goal I thought to be years down the road. And that’s when it started getting fun.
The more miles I ran, the faster I got. By 2012, I took another 14 minutes off of my PR-landing at 3:31, dropping 31 minutes in two-and-a-half years. Not much compares to the satisfaction of spending a decade trying to figure something out (how to run a decent marathon), and then finally having it click. Which gets at the heart of what captivates me about the distance…there is no one way to train for or race a marathon. It’s a journey that every runner has to take for themselves. Some people get lucky, and hit on the right mix of training right out of the gate. Some people battle as I did, which while frustrating, made it all the more gratifying when I finally cracked it. I ran several marathons/year through the spring of 2015, some I raced, some I ran for fun, most of them shared with friends. All told, I’ve finished over 30 marathons and a handful of trail ultras. But not one has been since April of 2015.
My health challenges of the last several years are well-documented in this space. The funkiness began in the fall of 2014, and continued to escalate for the next several years. Eventually I was unable to sustain my normal training levels, or any training at all for stretches of time. I raced shorter distances through the summer of 2015, but only very sporadically since then. I haven’t been able to stay healthy enough for long enough to get back to it. I started to think that chapter of my life might be behind me.
Earlier this summer, I started to dream again about what might be possible. The lifestyle changes of late 2018-early 2019 bore ripe fruit and I felt better than I had in years. Unfortunately, that was short-lived as the puppies coming home in early June unleashed some sort of chaos in my body that took the entire summer to recover from. The puppies themselves didn’t have anything to do with what happened, rather I think they were the catalyst that released what had been brewing in my body following the loss of my dad from pancreatic cancer in March and our old-lady dog Abby unexpectedly in May. But still, running dreams were once again caught up in the forest fire of my ongoing health issues.
After taking much of August off from running per doctor’s orders, I eased back into training right before Labor Day. Starting over for what felt like the thousandth time, I didn’t have expectations for where it might go, but it felt really, really good to be running again. Not running doesn’t really work for me, as running is about the only thing that keeps the cacophony of voices in my head down to a dull roar. It’s how I sort shit and make sense of the world. So even absence of races and training goals, running is the fabric that holds my days together. But for as terrible as the summer was, September was GOOD. I ran six days/week and started to see paces dropping. I’m still quite slow compared to “before”, but it is wonderful seeing some fitness start to return. This time felt different, even in the context of a horrendous summer.
On October 9, the Brave Like Gabe Foundation posted on their Instagram about having charity bibs available for Grandma’s Marathon in June. The post caught my eye. I hadn’t even considered running a marathon in 2020, but this sparked my interest. What if a return to the marathon had nothing to do with Boston or seeing if I could still run fast, but was to celebrate a woman who’s story meant to much to so many, including my dad? I’ve long admired my many friends who’ve raced for charity, but was deeply intimidated about doing it myself. However after enduring all of the Terrible Things the last few years, putting myself out there didn’t seem quite so scary. And running to raise funds to support Gabe’s foundation makes it not about me, but about helping others. If I was going to get over myself and reconnect with my favorite distance, the one that captivated my attention for 15 years of my running career, this seemed like a healthy way to approach it. So what if I end up out on the course for five hours? If I can raise some money that will do good in the world, it will be worth it. Ghosts of the past be damned.
I didn’t have this blog when I was healthy, and training and racing like a fiend. So for the first time, I’m going to document the journey to the start line. I don’t know what to expect from training, I don’t know how my body will respond. I do know I’m incredibly grateful to have the better part of nine months to develop fitness and get my body prepared to run 26.2. I’m going to need every single day. Currently I’m running about 35 miles/week with a long run of around ten miles. In September, I ran 112 miles, my first triple-digit month of the year. Knowing that historically my body likes mileage, I hope I can get back up to around 60 mpw by May. We’ll see.
Last Friday I posted on Instagram and Facebook that I would be running Grandma’s for Brave Like Gabe, and so many of you sat me flat on my ass with your generosity. You all far exceeded any thoughts about what I might raise by June, let alone in the first few days. THANK YOU. Thank you specifically to: Jill, Ghost, Mirjam, Robyn, Troy, Bridget & Dhuey, Ron & Cass, Amy, Bob, John, Prairie Runner, Dave & Liz, Becca, Petra, Nikki, and Judy. I am humbled and so grateful for your support of my campaign for Brave Like Gabe. I’ll be raising funds all of the way until the race in June, and will be training buoyed by your support, a good reminder that this race isn’t about me at all.
What I want most, outside of raising funds for Brave Like Gabe, is to immerse myself in training again. I miss building training programs and then ignoring them, the exhaustion of a long run, the frustration of niggle-management, second breakfast, a pile of worn-down shoes in the basement, the chronically dead legs that are the hallmark of the taper, packing lists for race weekend. I crave the whole brutiful mess of it. Dreaming again feels risky, a little dangerous even. But my heart is ready to take some risks and chase a few goals.
I love the silent hour of night,
For blissful dreams may then arise,
Revealing to my charmed sight
What may not bless my waking eyes. ~Anne Brontë